Q: You were once certain that vaccines were the hallmark of good medicine.

A: Yes I was. I helped develop a few vaccines. I won’t say which ones.

Q: Why not?

A: I want to preserve my privacy.

Q: So you think you could have problems if you came out into the open?

A: I believe I could lose my pension.

Q: On what grounds?

A: The grounds don’t matter. These people have ways of causing you problems, when you were once part of the Club. I know one or two people who were put under surveillance, who were harassed.

Q: Harassed by whom?

A: The FBI.

Q: Really?

A: Sure. The FBI used other pretexts. And the IRS can come calling too.

Q: So much for free speech.

A: I was “part of the inner circle.” If now I began to name names and make specific accusations against researchers, I could be in a world of trouble.

Q: What is at the bottom of these efforts at harassment?

A: Vaccines are the last defense of modern medicine. Vaccines are the ultimate justification for the overall “brilliance” of modern medicine.

Q: Do you believe that people should be allowed to choose whether they should get vaccines?

A: On a political level, yes. On a scientific level, people need information, so that they can choose well. It’s one thing to say choice is good. But if the atmosphere is full of lies, how can you choose? Also, if the FDA were run by honorable people, these vaccines would not be granted licenses. They would be investigated to within an inch of their lives.

Q: There are medical historians who state that the overall decline of illnesses was not due to vaccines.

A: I know. For a long time, I ignored their work.

Q: Why?

A: Because I was afraid of what I would find out. I was in the business of developing vaccines. My livelihood depended on continuing that work.

Q: And then?

A: I did my own investigation.

Q: What conclusions did you come to?

A: The decline of disease is due to improved living conditions.

Q: What conditions?

A: Cleaner water. Advanced sewage systems. Nutrition. Fresher food. A decrease in poverty. Germs may be everywhere, but when you are healthy, you don’t contract the diseases as easily.

Q: What did you feel when you completed your own investigation?

A: Despair. I realized I was working a sector based on a collection of lies.

Q: Are some vaccines more dangerous than others?

A: Yes. The DPT shot, for example. The MMR. But some lots of a vaccine are more dangerous than other lots of the same vaccine. As far as I’m concerned, all vaccines are dangerous.

Q: Why?

A: Several reasons. They involve the human immune system in a process that tends to compromise immunity. They can actually cause the disease they are supposed to prevent. They can cause other diseases than the ones they are supposed to prevent.

Q: Why are we quoted statistics which seem to prove that vaccines have been tremendously successful at wiping out diseases?

A: Why? To give the illusion that these vaccines are useful. If a vaccine suppresses visible symptoms of a disease like measles, everyone assumes that the vaccine is a success. But, under the surface, the vaccine can harm the immune system itself. And if it causes other diseases — say, meningitis — that fact is masked, because no one believes that the vaccine can do that. The connection is overlooked.

Yep, the anonymous confessional from a "paid internet shill" who wanted to "come clean" but not clean enough for anyone to be able to determine who it was, who they worked for and who they worked with. In other words not clean enough for anyone to be able to verify that they are who they say they are.

It's an argument from authority and it's a weak one because we have to take an anonymous commentor's word for it that they are who they say they are.

Nobody here would buy it if the post said they were a Nigerian prince. But they claim to be a doctor and furthermore one of the "inner circle" of vaccine developers (what is this, a Bond movie?) and spout the usual unsupported anti-vaccine claptrap and now we're supposed to take it at face value.

Real researchers publish and stake their professional reputations on their findings. If I want to find out the name of an author of a pro-vaccine study (or an anti-vaccine study for that matter) I can find them through pubmed and then search the faculty and find out where they're working. Apparently this anonymous warrior for true justice won't do this despite having retired.

Yep, the anonymous confessional from a "paid internet shill" who wanted to "come clean" but not clean enough for anyone to be able to determine who it was, who they worked for and who they worked with. In other words not clean enough for anyone to be able to verify that they are who they say they are.

It's an argument from authority and it's a weak one because we have to take an anonymous commentor's word for it that they are who they say they are.

Nobody here would buy it if the post said they were a Nigerian prince. But they claim to be a doctor and furthermore one of the "inner circle" of vaccine developers (what is this, a Bond movie?) and spout the usual unsupported anti-vaccine claptrap and now we're supposed to take it at face value.

Real researchers publish and stake their professional reputations on their findings. If I want to find out the name of an author of a pro-vaccine study (or an anti-vaccine study for that matter) I can find them through pubmed and then search the faculty and find out where they're working. Apparently this anonymous warrior for true justice won't do this despite having retired.

I was actually buying into it until I realized the name of the site: Health Impact News. Clearly an "alternative" news site of sorts, which more or less means it pedals conspiracy theories.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and CVS Pharmacy do warn people of the risk of contracting GBS. But the warning is vaguely written in fine print: “If there is a risk of GBS from current flu vaccines, it would be no more than one or two cases per million people vaccinated.”

The CDC says the minute risk of GBS is worth it.

Stec questions that logic, however. “You can risk getting paralyzed, or you can risk a couple of weeks with the sniffles,” he says. “How can you put this in comparison?”

Easy. The risk of GBS is greater from contracting influenza than it is from getting a vaccine. That's without even accounting for the other effects of influenza including pneumonia, fibrile seizures, bronchitis and heart disease.

The numbers above are also a bit misleading.

There are approximately 1 cases per 100,000 people under 30 per year of GBS. The flu vaccine increases your chance to 1.1 per 100,000 per year at the most. Studies range from zero increase to one in 1 million increase. Your risk of death from influenza is 1 in 10,000 cases and your risk of GBS from catching the flu is 1 in 100,000. In other words if you catch flu you double your chances of catching GBS from 1 in 100,000 to 2 in 100,000.